Friends, it's time to start saving; it's time to stop saving for.
We hear almost every day about saving for retirement, a new car, a holiday vacation in the Pyrenees. There are advice columns, how-to workshops, and entire sections in bookstores. PBS devotes half of its pledge drives to shows teaching us how to save for something (all the while hopefully donating to PBS). But what might happen if we stopped saving for some specific goal and started simply saving.
Let's say you should be saving twenty-five percent of your expendable income. This means that if you make $400 a week and you spend $200 on rent, food, utilities, clothing, childcare, etc., you should be able to save $50 every week. If you spend $300 on these necessities, cut your savings expectation down to $25. Doing just this nets you $1300 per year (at $25/wk) that you can now put in a CD earning interest for one, five, or ten years. You should be able to find a CD earning 5%. That rate at $1300 gives you $65 extra dollars per year. That's like adding two extra weeks onto your year every year. And of course, since interest compounds, soon you'll have three extra weeks, four, and five. A weekly savings plan could easily become time in a bottle.
And the best part about this can be that you've got no goal. It's the difference between a crash diet to lose ten pounds and the decision to live your live more healthily. Saving to buy a car wipes you out once you've made your purchase; let's not even talk about the ridiculousness of trying to save "enough" money for retirement. Do you really want to be the guy who lasts longer than his money? Saving without a goal becomes automatic, as addictive as a Camel Wide on a hot summer night. And you don't ever have to be anxious or worry about your savings because there's no time constraint. You don't have to save $2000 by Christmas because you're not using it for Christmas anyway.
You might say you can't afford it. You might be right for all I know. But remember, I'm not talking about your whole paycheck. When you think about this 25%, do not include the money you need to pay the bills. That money is important and misplacing it, even to save, could do more harm than good. You may find that, once needs are taken into account, you've got $20 at the end of the week, and that crisp green Lincoln seems too sweet to waste away in some dusty old checking account. Well, tell Abe he's cooling his heels for a while. This kind of savings takes self control—more control than goal oriented savings. It's easy to squirrel money away for an ipod; much more difficult to save without purpose.
But, if we're not saving for anything, when do we get to use the money? What is the point of all this anyway? To this I say, if you are lucky enough to never fall on hard times, never to find that your personal surplus just became a deficit, leave the savings to your children. If you don't have children, leave it to your favorite charity. Trust me, once the habit starts, you won't miss it anyway.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
A Personal Account
From time to time—especially when I have no sage wisdom to impart—this blog will get personal. I'll tell a little bit about me and about what it's like to be me in my attempts to free myself from the shackles (okay, I'm getting dramatic) of debt.
Currently I'm between jobs. That is, I'm employed, but I'm between jobs I like. That is, I'm between jobs I've trained for and would actually want to keep for a sizable duration. I'm not thrilled with the space between things, but it has given me a unique perspective. I'm currently working retail at Plantain Democracy (you figure it out). Let me first say that the people I work with are pretty fantastic. Even when I'm pissed off about something, I don't stay that way for long. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of talented, smart, and enjoyable people in my many pinball professions, and there's no exception here. Still, I notice things.
Racism—and its cousins, Gender and Sexual Bias—are rampant here. There is a distaste about serving people that seems to increase with the depth of natural pigment. Many cashiers prefer Asians to Latinos, Latinos to Indians, and Indians to Blacks. Being gay is also a turnoff unless we're talking shoes. I suppose I could quote some statistics on how certain socioeconomic and geographical/cultural backgrounds influence the reaction to these variables, but the truth, I believe, is even simpler.
If I am told a man is beneath me and then find myself in service to that man, how else may I react other than in anger? Make no mistake, retail is humbling work. Working in newspaper production, I felt as though I was contributing to the community and raising my own stock in the process. Even though the pay at PD is roughly the same (and on a cost-of-living basis, better), I feel much less satisfied about my role in the human game. I'm a pretty common commodity in the retail sector. I'm young, white, and male (Truth be told, at PD there are three men among fifteen odd women. There are two Asian, one Latino, and two Black employees.). As (mostly) young, (mostly) white, able-bodied workers having every advantage under the sun, what are we to conclude by seeing the ethnic range of our betters? Intelligence seems the only variable, and proof of our station shows we must be lacking.
Now, I don't believe this. But a lot of people do. And so, not wanting to feel inferior to those we've been told should feel inferior to us, we call them uppity; we hold grudges; we hate. And, I believe, we hate ourselves for hating.
I've never met a happy hater. I don't believe one exists. And so there is the double whammy hate breeds. This feeling is obviously not good for the hated. Hate crimes and lesser mentioned but just as emotionally destructive events, i.e. shunning, name calling, stereotyping, clearly effect the target of these actions. But just as the arrow pierces the target, it also rakes the bow.
We need, on the whole, an equalization on all fronts. It is not enough to provide Affirmative Action for one group of people while another group is left behind to breed hate. It is not enough to educate men and women only to let them see how close they might have come if given a few better opportunities. It is a difficult thing to talk about what a man deserves. I can say that a doctor is an important man because he saves lives, but where would he be without the roofer who keeps the weather out of his practice? If we were all painters, who would appreciate the art? Our place and station has a quantifiable value and the weight is placed too high. We must learn to appreciate men and women for the fact of their existence, not only what they do with it. As a writer as yet unsuccessful, I would be loathed to think my life a failure simply because no bound book bears my name.
The struggle is where life lies. Why are we always on a path of avoidance? Our success or lack is too great a burden. Relieve the weight; relieve the hate.
Currently I'm between jobs. That is, I'm employed, but I'm between jobs I like. That is, I'm between jobs I've trained for and would actually want to keep for a sizable duration. I'm not thrilled with the space between things, but it has given me a unique perspective. I'm currently working retail at Plantain Democracy (you figure it out). Let me first say that the people I work with are pretty fantastic. Even when I'm pissed off about something, I don't stay that way for long. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of talented, smart, and enjoyable people in my many pinball professions, and there's no exception here. Still, I notice things.
Racism—and its cousins, Gender and Sexual Bias—are rampant here. There is a distaste about serving people that seems to increase with the depth of natural pigment. Many cashiers prefer Asians to Latinos, Latinos to Indians, and Indians to Blacks. Being gay is also a turnoff unless we're talking shoes. I suppose I could quote some statistics on how certain socioeconomic and geographical/cultural backgrounds influence the reaction to these variables, but the truth, I believe, is even simpler.
If I am told a man is beneath me and then find myself in service to that man, how else may I react other than in anger? Make no mistake, retail is humbling work. Working in newspaper production, I felt as though I was contributing to the community and raising my own stock in the process. Even though the pay at PD is roughly the same (and on a cost-of-living basis, better), I feel much less satisfied about my role in the human game. I'm a pretty common commodity in the retail sector. I'm young, white, and male (Truth be told, at PD there are three men among fifteen odd women. There are two Asian, one Latino, and two Black employees.). As (mostly) young, (mostly) white, able-bodied workers having every advantage under the sun, what are we to conclude by seeing the ethnic range of our betters? Intelligence seems the only variable, and proof of our station shows we must be lacking.
Now, I don't believe this. But a lot of people do. And so, not wanting to feel inferior to those we've been told should feel inferior to us, we call them uppity; we hold grudges; we hate. And, I believe, we hate ourselves for hating.
I've never met a happy hater. I don't believe one exists. And so there is the double whammy hate breeds. This feeling is obviously not good for the hated. Hate crimes and lesser mentioned but just as emotionally destructive events, i.e. shunning, name calling, stereotyping, clearly effect the target of these actions. But just as the arrow pierces the target, it also rakes the bow.
We need, on the whole, an equalization on all fronts. It is not enough to provide Affirmative Action for one group of people while another group is left behind to breed hate. It is not enough to educate men and women only to let them see how close they might have come if given a few better opportunities. It is a difficult thing to talk about what a man deserves. I can say that a doctor is an important man because he saves lives, but where would he be without the roofer who keeps the weather out of his practice? If we were all painters, who would appreciate the art? Our place and station has a quantifiable value and the weight is placed too high. We must learn to appreciate men and women for the fact of their existence, not only what they do with it. As a writer as yet unsuccessful, I would be loathed to think my life a failure simply because no bound book bears my name.
The struggle is where life lies. Why are we always on a path of avoidance? Our success or lack is too great a burden. Relieve the weight; relieve the hate.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tax and Don't Spend
My fellow Americans...
Typically I find myself among the pathetic ranks of the liberal, elitist, tax-and-spend, left-leaning, ambivalent that make up the bulk of the Democratic Party; and typically I am happy there. I support welfare, universal health care, women's and LGBT rights, and equal opportunity on racial, cultural, and class issues. I like unions and pull for the working man; I even recycle. They say that to live like a Republican you must vote Democrat, and I'm all for Republican living. But lately, the Democratic tax and spend philosophy has been found lacking. Lately, our coffers have too.
That is why, today, I am announcing the formation of a new party in Washington D.C. I call it the Responsible Party. It brakes down like this:
Republican—Conservative
Democrat—Liberal
Responsible—Realistic
Realism is the cooking goose that is lacking entirely from either side of this Presidential campaign. The essential issue here is that both men are looking at the same coin from different sides, all the while swearing that there are, in fact, two coins. Obama insists on a national fiscal responsibility that reduces wasteful spending, no-bid contracts, and realigns tax rates so the wealthy pay more. McCain insists that the solution is really "comprehensive spending controls" and "bi-partisanship in budget efforts" (quoted from http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/reform.htm).
The problem is that Obama limits spending cuts to "wasteful" spending and not to other, useful spending that we might just not be able to afford. In fact most of the admittedly good ideas he has about universal health care and energy policy will be difficult to pay for without tax increases across the board in addition to those changes mentioned above.
On McCain's side, he's convinced that the growth the country will need to balance the budget (note that his plan only recommends we stop making the deficit worse) by the end of his first term (his faith that he'll be able to walk, much less run, for a second term is impressive) inherently depends on making existing tax cuts permanent and offering new ones. McCain wants to lower corporate taxes to keep our jobs from taking the continental tour over to India and Asia. Now, I'm well aware that truth does not a campaign make, but Mr. McCain must know that a two or three percent tax cut isn't going to keep jobs in country. Industry leaves because, overseas, it can employee twenty workers for the same cost as one US laborer. To truly make the US competitive in many industries, we would actually have to pay them taxes (please note I'm not recommending this, at all, ever).
The Responsible Party takes this stand: Tax and Don't Spend. Responsibility will reconfigure the tax structure to take into account income, family size, and locational cost of living. Responsibility will take a close look at what it costs to create a firm foundation for the wage earner and family and will not tax a penny of it. Responsibility will take one quarter to one half of everything else. That's high taxes; that's responsible.
The US debt is approximately $9.5 trillion dollars. Typed out, 9,529,784,240,557.76, it is a chaotic collision of Arabic numerals (suspicious, no?) and messy punctuation. My share is $31,304.64; so is yours. (Figures quoted from www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ are accurate as of 25 Jul 2008 at 06:03:41 PM GMT)
On top of an increase in taxes, the US government will stop paying for programs it cannot afford. Period. If we want war, we can't have health care; we can't have schools; we can't have parks, roads, and bridges. Do you know why we have felt less affected by this war than any other generation of Americans living during a time of major conflict? Mostly because China is paying for it. What happens when China wants their money back? Do you have your $31 thousand ready? When we feel the pinch of policy, we change policy. America is dreaming; Responsibility will wake it.
Reader of this blog (currently that isn't a typo :) ) may wonder why I've shifted focus from my own debt to a debt on a more massive scale. It seems to me that debt has become as endemic to this country as obesity and dependence on foreign oil. How can I expect myself and others to spend their own money responsibly when a government made up of great minds (I swear there is no sarcasm here) cannot do it? We will and we must. In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, the US and Canada, joined together as O.N.A.N., offer corporate sponsorship of time itself. Will we ever be that desperate for money? There is shame in that doubt.
Typically I find myself among the pathetic ranks of the liberal, elitist, tax-and-spend, left-leaning, ambivalent that make up the bulk of the Democratic Party; and typically I am happy there. I support welfare, universal health care, women's and LGBT rights, and equal opportunity on racial, cultural, and class issues. I like unions and pull for the working man; I even recycle. They say that to live like a Republican you must vote Democrat, and I'm all for Republican living. But lately, the Democratic tax and spend philosophy has been found lacking. Lately, our coffers have too.
That is why, today, I am announcing the formation of a new party in Washington D.C. I call it the Responsible Party. It brakes down like this:
Republican—Conservative
Democrat—Liberal
Responsible—Realistic
Realism is the cooking goose that is lacking entirely from either side of this Presidential campaign. The essential issue here is that both men are looking at the same coin from different sides, all the while swearing that there are, in fact, two coins. Obama insists on a national fiscal responsibility that reduces wasteful spending, no-bid contracts, and realigns tax rates so the wealthy pay more. McCain insists that the solution is really "comprehensive spending controls" and "bi-partisanship in budget efforts" (quoted from http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/reform.htm).
The problem is that Obama limits spending cuts to "wasteful" spending and not to other, useful spending that we might just not be able to afford. In fact most of the admittedly good ideas he has about universal health care and energy policy will be difficult to pay for without tax increases across the board in addition to those changes mentioned above.
On McCain's side, he's convinced that the growth the country will need to balance the budget (note that his plan only recommends we stop making the deficit worse) by the end of his first term (his faith that he'll be able to walk, much less run, for a second term is impressive) inherently depends on making existing tax cuts permanent and offering new ones. McCain wants to lower corporate taxes to keep our jobs from taking the continental tour over to India and Asia. Now, I'm well aware that truth does not a campaign make, but Mr. McCain must know that a two or three percent tax cut isn't going to keep jobs in country. Industry leaves because, overseas, it can employee twenty workers for the same cost as one US laborer. To truly make the US competitive in many industries, we would actually have to pay them taxes (please note I'm not recommending this, at all, ever).
The Responsible Party takes this stand: Tax and Don't Spend. Responsibility will reconfigure the tax structure to take into account income, family size, and locational cost of living. Responsibility will take a close look at what it costs to create a firm foundation for the wage earner and family and will not tax a penny of it. Responsibility will take one quarter to one half of everything else. That's high taxes; that's responsible.
The US debt is approximately $9.5 trillion dollars. Typed out, 9,529,784,240,557.76, it is a chaotic collision of Arabic numerals (suspicious, no?) and messy punctuation. My share is $31,304.64; so is yours. (Figures quoted from www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ are accurate as of 25 Jul 2008 at 06:03:41 PM GMT)
On top of an increase in taxes, the US government will stop paying for programs it cannot afford. Period. If we want war, we can't have health care; we can't have schools; we can't have parks, roads, and bridges. Do you know why we have felt less affected by this war than any other generation of Americans living during a time of major conflict? Mostly because China is paying for it. What happens when China wants their money back? Do you have your $31 thousand ready? When we feel the pinch of policy, we change policy. America is dreaming; Responsibility will wake it.
Reader of this blog (currently that isn't a typo :) ) may wonder why I've shifted focus from my own debt to a debt on a more massive scale. It seems to me that debt has become as endemic to this country as obesity and dependence on foreign oil. How can I expect myself and others to spend their own money responsibly when a government made up of great minds (I swear there is no sarcasm here) cannot do it? We will and we must. In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, the US and Canada, joined together as O.N.A.N., offer corporate sponsorship of time itself. Will we ever be that desperate for money? There is shame in that doubt.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
0% until 2009
Speaking of teasers, I just received a letter informing me of a way to lower my interest rate and help my Alma Mater at no additional cost to me!
Going for the teaser isn't always a bad idea. I have an account with a certain national bank that offered me a teaser like this last year. So now the tease is up and we're closing in on regular rates, i.e. rates even Shylock would be embarrassed to charge. So was I a fool to go for it? Not necessarily. I had already grown so fed up with my debt that I swore I would be more responsible with my credit cards. For me this responsibility included not using them at all. Aside from unforeseen emergencies, I would simply have to do without until I had enough money in the bank to cover whatever it was I wanted. And (this is the important part) I stuck to it. I created a schedule that would ensure I paid off the credit card by the time the teaser expired ($200/mo. for 12 months), and I stuck to it ... for nine months.
Month number nine included a trip for my wife to Texas for a conference she wished to attend. Normally, I would have said, "No emergency; no way." But considering the presence of conference members in positions to offer positions, we made an exception. As it turns out, the gamble paid off, and she learned about a job she would have never had the opportunity to apply for without attending. Even more importantly, she got that job. I mention this to illustrate that dogged adherence to this sort of schedule may not necessarily be for everyone. Only you can determine when it's worth risking a break from the path. It worked for us; it might not work for you.
In the end, I've still got a balance on the card. But this balance is considerably less than it would have been had I stuck with my old card at Shylock's special rate. The key, as always, is discipline. If you don't have it, don't go for it. You'll just end up telling yourself you're saving money while running up more debt that will bite you back a year later. "Know thyself"—a pretty good motto in general.
So what if you can't help yourself? The best way is to stop the offers from coming. According t0 41pounds.org, the average American adult receives, you guessed it, 41 pounds of junk mail every year. Not all of that is credit card offers, but if you're mailbox looks anything like mine, about 1/2 to 2/3 is. 41pounds offers a service to eliminate up to 95% of this junk mail from your mail- or P.O. box. The cost? $41 dollars for five years, and they donate 1/3 to environmental or community organizations you choose when you sign up at www.41pounds.org. Help the environment; help yourself. At the very least, send those unwanted offers straight to the recycling bin.
Going for the teaser isn't always a bad idea. I have an account with a certain national bank that offered me a teaser like this last year. So now the tease is up and we're closing in on regular rates, i.e. rates even Shylock would be embarrassed to charge. So was I a fool to go for it? Not necessarily. I had already grown so fed up with my debt that I swore I would be more responsible with my credit cards. For me this responsibility included not using them at all. Aside from unforeseen emergencies, I would simply have to do without until I had enough money in the bank to cover whatever it was I wanted. And (this is the important part) I stuck to it. I created a schedule that would ensure I paid off the credit card by the time the teaser expired ($200/mo. for 12 months), and I stuck to it ... for nine months.
Month number nine included a trip for my wife to Texas for a conference she wished to attend. Normally, I would have said, "No emergency; no way." But considering the presence of conference members in positions to offer positions, we made an exception. As it turns out, the gamble paid off, and she learned about a job she would have never had the opportunity to apply for without attending. Even more importantly, she got that job. I mention this to illustrate that dogged adherence to this sort of schedule may not necessarily be for everyone. Only you can determine when it's worth risking a break from the path. It worked for us; it might not work for you.
In the end, I've still got a balance on the card. But this balance is considerably less than it would have been had I stuck with my old card at Shylock's special rate. The key, as always, is discipline. If you don't have it, don't go for it. You'll just end up telling yourself you're saving money while running up more debt that will bite you back a year later. "Know thyself"—a pretty good motto in general.
So what if you can't help yourself? The best way is to stop the offers from coming. According t0 41pounds.org, the average American adult receives, you guessed it, 41 pounds of junk mail every year. Not all of that is credit card offers, but if you're mailbox looks anything like mine, about 1/2 to 2/3 is. 41pounds offers a service to eliminate up to 95% of this junk mail from your mail- or P.O. box. The cost? $41 dollars for five years, and they donate 1/3 to environmental or community organizations you choose when you sign up at www.41pounds.org. Help the environment; help yourself. At the very least, send those unwanted offers straight to the recycling bin.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
A Blog is Born
Today is the first day of the rest of this blog.
Hello. I am the Worthless Blogger; rather, I want to be. Why Worthless? As a (relatively) recent college graduate and even more (relatively) recent grad school dropout, I find myself at the foot of Mount Debt with a wealth of lenders knocking on my account's door. What kind of debt are we talking about? I'll get more specific later—I still have to calculate, what with my wife and I having separate accounts and student loans—but let's just say my family won't be the only folks to miss me when I'm gone.
The solution? Get out of debt, and blog about it while I'm at it. My ambition, no matter how long it takes, is to become Worthless. As a Worthless Blogger, I will have a net worth of $0.00, but I will be debt free. I will no longer quake at the mailman's steps or imagine listlessly what it might be like to keep my whole paycheck for myself (minus the power, cable, and cellphone companies). I will be free of the ball and chain, divorced from Mrs. Plastic; I will look at 6-month low-interest rates and laugh. Please, join me. As I worm my way up from the bottom, I'll do my best to offer tidbits of advice and support to those in the same—or, God forbid, worse—shape that I'm in. I'm not promising financial advice to make you rich, but I'll guarantee you company in misery. Besides, whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger; and whatever doesn't charge interest is probably a teaser.
Hello. I am the Worthless Blogger; rather, I want to be. Why Worthless? As a (relatively) recent college graduate and even more (relatively) recent grad school dropout, I find myself at the foot of Mount Debt with a wealth of lenders knocking on my account's door. What kind of debt are we talking about? I'll get more specific later—I still have to calculate, what with my wife and I having separate accounts and student loans—but let's just say my family won't be the only folks to miss me when I'm gone.
The solution? Get out of debt, and blog about it while I'm at it. My ambition, no matter how long it takes, is to become Worthless. As a Worthless Blogger, I will have a net worth of $0.00, but I will be debt free. I will no longer quake at the mailman's steps or imagine listlessly what it might be like to keep my whole paycheck for myself (minus the power, cable, and cellphone companies). I will be free of the ball and chain, divorced from Mrs. Plastic; I will look at 6-month low-interest rates and laugh. Please, join me. As I worm my way up from the bottom, I'll do my best to offer tidbits of advice and support to those in the same—or, God forbid, worse—shape that I'm in. I'm not promising financial advice to make you rich, but I'll guarantee you company in misery. Besides, whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger; and whatever doesn't charge interest is probably a teaser.
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